


Nexus

by queensmooting



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Trek Fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-23 03:28:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20001601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queensmooting/pseuds/queensmooting
Summary: Captain Smith faces a test.





	Nexus

**Author's Note:**

> tried keeping the nerd shit to a bare minimum but still not sure if this will make any gddamn sense. how's that for a sales pitch

Erwin’s fingers drum against the arm of his chair. With each drum another crew member shouts an update, another warning light flashes, another siren blares.

_ Gravimetric distortions too strong for a tractor beam. Photon torpedos ineffective against its energy shield, and we can’t risk hitting the vessel. Not before beaming the survivors aboard.  _

His eyes never leave the tiny ship before them, caught in a brilliant ribbon of destructive energy, tugging the vessel closer to her doom with every second. A group of two hundred or so refugees wait for help onboard, all El-Aurians fleeing the Borg.

_ They should sail into the arms of peace. They shouldn’t die like this. _

“Don’t suppose you want to share what’s going on in there?”

Levi’s hand waves at Erwin’s temple. His voice clears and cuts through Erwin’s thoughts.

“Yes.” Erwin taps his badge. “Bridge to engineering.”

“Hope you’re all doing better up there than we are down here.” Hange’s voice, lightly tinged with panic, booms over the com. 

"Is the warp drive ready?"

"No good, Captain, we're not budging til we break free of this thing."

“And if we increase warp factor?”

“Even if we push this thing to 9.9 it won’t be fast enough.”

"I see.” Flares burst from the ribbon of energy and he grips the arm of his chair. Nerves he thought he’d long suppressed threaten to steal his heart. “Hange, do you think we could modify the dish’s deflector shields to--”

“I thought about it, but ah--” A crash over the com, followed by screams from engineering. “Captain, we’re barely holding down the fort here, maybe if you could send someone down there to take care of--”

“Yes.” Erwin stands. “Lieutenant Commander, I’m trusting your team to bring up the El-Aurians. I’ll handle the deflector. Smith out.”

Levi looks up sharply from his screen. “Handle  _ what  _ now?”

“You have the bridge, Commander. See that the lower three decks are evacuated.”

“Erwin, where--”

The door closes and Erwin flies through the halls, hurrying for the stairs. Those on the lower decks would need the lifts more than himself.

He reaches Deck 15 with a knife in his lungs and slows only enough to ease himself down the thin ladders toward the main control panels. The room is hot with steam and rumbles with the ribbon’s increasing gravitational pull. To steady himself he keeps an arm hooked around a rickety metal post as he works.

_ We need a push. Something with the force of a torpedo, without the destruction. A resonance burst. Give us the kick we need to get out of its range and warp away. _

_ If Hange got all the survivors onboard in time. I have to trust them. _

He types quick numbers and codes into the system, a peace taking over as the work becomes clinical. His father had been an engineering teacher and his voice guides him even now. Even now Erwin remembers sneaking into his father’s lectures at the Academy when he was supposed to be in his elementary classroom. 

Another blast rocks the ship. Erwin remembers Levi’s face before the bridge door slid closed. If he hadn’t given Levi command the man would’ve come with him. He knows it like he knows his father always saw him in his class, crouching behind a student’s seat in the back rows. Levi might even have gone in Erwin’s place.

The screen lights with green. Erwin thinks of Levi’s devotion and wonders if his actions today could finally make him worthy.

Erwin presses his badge.

“Smith to bridge. Deflector ready. Go. Go!”

The ship jolts and reverses, slow, then picking up speed. Crashes sound all around him but they’re on their way. Erwin allows himself a sigh.

And then a thunderous rope of light whips across the hull.

*

Erwin wakes in his childhood bed, with longer legs than ever slept there before. He rises and stretches, better-rested than he’s felt in years. Nails tap at the door.

“Finally up are you?” a teasing voice calls. “Breakfast is on, hurry before it gets cold.”

A golden morning peers through the lace curtains around the kitchen. Erwin sits at the table. Plates of fruit, toast, and scrambled Ktarian eggs sit before him, as do his mother and father, older than he’s ever seen them. They ask him about his ship and his crew and his missions while he asks them about their school and their farm and their families and somehow he knows what to say even if his heart still beats in shock at the sight of their faces.

It should have been a dream. He’d never felt more awake.

Never in his dreams could he feel the papery skin of his mother’s hand under his own. Never in his dreams was his father’s voice so clear, commanding as ever it was in the classroom.

The doorbell chimes across the house intercoms.

“Dear,” his mother says, “I’m afraid I’m rather too settled in to get up. Could you…?”

His father laughs and moves to rise, but Erwin holds up a hand. “I’ll get it.”

Erwin opens the door.

And he’s nearly steamrolled by a pair of girls. They climb into his arms like they belong there, chattering about their day, asking if Grandma and Grandpa sent anything for them.

“Get down, you monsters,” says a voice from the hall, “at least let him in the door.”

Levi’s let his hair grow ( _ but no--it’s been like that for years _ , he’s reminded from some unfamiliar corner of his subconscious). He meets them at the door and takes the smaller girl from Erwin’s arms. The older one wraps her arms around his neck. 

“How are your folks?” Levi asks.

“Good,” Erwin says, “they--hey! Thief!”

The girl reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out the model  _ Phoenix  _ that Erwin’s mother had in fact sent for her. She delights at the toy spaceship and kisses his cheek before she gets down to play.

“I have to go into the Academy early tomorrow,” Levi says, already rubbing his eyes at the idea. “Testing the latest crop of brats. You’ll--”

“--get the girls to school. Of course.”

Levi sighs, leaning his forehead against Erwin’s chest. “Fucking testing,” he mutters, too quietly for the girls to hear.

Erwin smiles, running a hand through Levi’s hair without thinking. Levi doesn’t flinch, leaning into his touch, like the gesture was familiar as an old song. The softness of each strand was a thrill to Erwin’s fingertips. Something was wrong. Everything was right.

“Alright, c’mon.” Levi straightens up. “Let’s get you unpacked.”

Erwin looks over his shoulder. The Golden Gate stretches across the water, with Starfleet Academy on the shores beyond. His eyes track a vessel leaving the clean blue atmosphere.

Then he steps through the front door.

Levi curls in a loveseat by the wide window. The sunshine fades into a rainy stretch of sky. The San Francisco Bay becomes a pebbly shore, a toiling sea. The scene changes and Erwin slips into another role.

“Can I make you some tea?”

“Not yet,” Levi says. “Sit by me.”

Erwin does. Levi looks cold without a mug to warm his hands, so he draws a blanket over their legs. Levi inches close under its weight.

For a while they let the sea do their talking, quiet affirmations of a world Erwin still doesn’t quite understand. Then Levi speaks again.

“Not quite the picture Armin painted for us, is it?”

“No. Not quite.”

They’re silent again. Something shudders in Erwin’s chest, some realization, but he pushes it aside.  _ Not yet _ .

“Still.” Levi lays his head on Erwin’s shoulder and Erwin’s surprised he survives the swell in his heart. “It’ll do,” Levi says.

After a while a shiver runs through Levi’s skin and Erwin rises. On his way to the kitchen he passes their bookshelf, records of worlds old and new, with a box of old military gear tucked away on top.

He opens the door.

To his graduation from the Academy, his parents cheering in the crowd ( _ and his father shouldn’t be there but he is, he is, he is _ ). Shaking hands with Admiral Zackley. His assignment to the  _ Surveyor _ . Giving his own heart room for a rare burst of pride.

To, four years later, meeting a difficult young cadet, a Romulan defector who refused to believe in a no-win scenario. To vouching for him when the Academy wanted him expelled for hacking the  _ Kobayashi Maru _ . Watching stars fill the grey of his eyes as he left the atmosphere for the first time.

To a primitive Terran classroom, chalkboards and wooden desks and paper books, with his father leading in a language he’d never heard and somehow understands.

To realities he knows were never realities.

To Passovers at the Ackerman house. Christmases with the Smiths. Birthdays with his daughters, in a life where duty ceased its call.

To a sea of solitude, to a heart full of absolution he’d somehow earned, where he weeps and it feels like joy.

To a bed with Levi, to prattle and love and luxuriate in endless peace, never once growing tired or hungry. And not for hours or days or years does it occur to him to wonder _is this real, is this right, is this_ _him_ \--

But when it does occur Erwin sits up sharp, impossibly soft sheets slipping and settling at his waist. Levi props himself up on an elbow.

“What’s wrong?”

“The El-Aurians,” Erwin gasps. “Did we…?”

“Ah. Them.” Levi settles back onto the pillows. “I suppose we did.”

“You suppose?”

Levi sighs. “It was all thanks to you, wasn’t it? You think you’d remember.”

He does--he thinks--but the memory is dull, filed somewhere between childhood dreams and adult longings. A fancy of his mind. He can’t recall the feel of shaking an El-Aurian hand to welcome them onboard. He can’t recall one of their voices.

_ I’ve done nothing. I’ve saved no one. Not yet _ .

The air outside their bed feels cold. Levi is warm as he pulls Erwin into his arms. Perhaps another hour.

Even as he thinks it the sun slides east outside the window, ticking their hours back to dawn, cool blue light filling the room. How long had this been happening? How long had he been making this happen?

_ This isn’t real _ . The truth lands heavy in his heart, stings at his eyes.  _ This isn’t real. But somewhere out there my crew is _ .

“I’ll be right back,” Erwin says.

Levi’s arms tighten, a cage of steel Erwin would happily lock himself in forever. “Where are you going?”

“Make you some tea.”

“Hrm.” Levi releases him. “Hurry back.”

Erwin cups Levi’s face in his hand, runs a slow thumb over the seam of his disapproving mouth. “I promise.”

Stepping away from Levi is like trying to breathe underwater, to set the earth spinning clockwise, to silence every instinct and law of nature begging him to  _ go back, go back, go back _ .

_ But I am going back. We’re not finished yet. _

He sets a hand on the doorknob and almost hears the sirens of his ship again.

_ And there will be a chance for this. _

_ This isn’t the end _ . 

*

He walks through the door. And onto the bridge of the  _ Surveyor _ . Empty, but for Levi in the captain’s chair. His first officer smiles at the sight of him.

“Just keeping it warm for you,” he says, and rises to his feet.

*

The warm light of sickbay greets his eyes as they creak open.

“Welcome back, Captain.”

He turns his head slowly, wincing through the pain in his neck. An older El-Aurian man occupies the bed next to his, his leg tightly bandaged and elevated.

“You saw it too, didn’t you?” the man asks.

“What was it?” It startles Erwin how thin his voice goes, hushed in wonder.

“The Nexus. A ribbon of temporal energy that touches our galaxy every forty years or so. The ribbon exists outside of space and time, beyond which…” His eyes soften. “Well, you know now, don’t you. Anything can be yours in the Nexus. Any reality, any fleeting childish wish, any joy.”

“And it isn’t real. Any of it.”

“No, I’m sorry.” The man’s smile is sad. “What did you see, Captain?”

“Forgiveness.” He swallows. “What is your name?”

“Uri. You saved my nieces and I. You’re a good man, Captain Smith.”

Erwin shakes his head, slow under the haze of medicine.

“Yes, yes you are. I’ve lived a great many years, even for an El-Aurian. I’ve seen the rise and near-end of my people. And I’ve seen very few who could look into the deepest desires of their hearts and turn away. To take up the good fight instead.”

A protest is half-formed in his mouth when the sickbay door opens.

“Ah, you again,” Uri says, amused. “Who’s this one who’s hardly left your side, Captain?”

“My number one,” Erwin says, the medicine letting loose a note of fondness.

“I have so left your side,” Levi grumbles. He fiddles with a screen in his hands, leaning back against the foot of Erwin’s bed. “Someone had to keep this ship running. The hull’s a mess, of course, Deck 15’s half-exposed, the shields held back most of the impact so there isn’t too much structural damage, repairs could still take a few months, and we should--”

“Is anyone hurt?”

“Besides your brave stupid ass? No, no one from our ship. Some of the El-Aurians we managed to beam aboard were a little roughed up, like your friend here, but most everyone’s already been treated and seen to their own quarters. You’re the only one still sleeping around here.”

“So we didn’t...lose…?”

“No. We didn’t lose anyone.”

“Then it’s alright,” Erwin says, patting his bedside. “No need to worry about all that now.”

“But, the repairs--”

“We’ll talk about it soon. Sit with us a while.”

Levi sits on the bed carefully, his hand resting inches from Erwin’s. In other lives Erwin remembers the feel of rough fingertips and surprising strength lying in such small bones but he won’t take Levi’s hand today. Not yet.

Levi sighs, turning his screen off. “I guess we have time.”

Erwin smiles. “You have no idea.”


End file.
